The Northeast Document Conservation Center’s Introduction to Preservation defines restoration as “treatment procedures intended to return cultural property to a known or assumed state, often through the addition of non-original material.” (1) In the context of preservation I’ve generally thought of the term as it would apply to art objects, paintings for instance, or to the rebinding of books. In both these cases while the finished object may contain new materials the data that the object presents (whether visually or through text) will hopefully remain unchanged.
However, when talking about digital objects restoration takes on a whole new meaning, and presents new issues and problems for preservationists. “Restoring a file” in simple terms means retrieving it from the recycle bin or from a backup, but in the case of damaged or corrupted files often the best one can hope for is to salvage some of the data. While there are algorithms available for restoring digital images (2), corrupted text files are another matter. Missing text cannot be filled in without the danger of changing the meaning of the work. As more and more of our records are either created or preserved digitally, I suspect this second context of restoration will take on increasing significance.
1. Foley,Lori (Project director). What is preservation? Definitions. In Preservation 101. Andover, Massachusetts: Northeast Document Conservation Center. (2006) Retrieved from http://unfacilitated.preservation101.org/
2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inpainting
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